Indian Indigo

(Indigofera tinctoria)

Description
A branching shrub upto 2m high, leaves with 7-13 leaflets, green when fresh
and greyish back on drying, tender branches bluish red in color, flowers
many in nearly sessile lax spicate racemes which are much shorter than the
leaves, red or pink, fruits cylindric pods, pale greenish grey when young
and dark brown on ripening with 10-12 seeds.

Chemical Constituents
Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash, and lime. It is a rich source of potash,
the ash containing as much as 9.5% of soluble potassium salts. Indigo is a
dark blue crystalline powder that melts at 390°-392°C. It is
insoluble in water, alcohol, or ether but soluble in chloroform,
nitrobenzene, or concentrated sulfuric acid. The chemical structure of
indigo corresponds to the formula C16H10N2O2.

Cosmetic Uses
The Indigo and
Henna
treatment makes hair thicker. The henna and indigo relaxes curls, and makes
hair full, manageable, glossy. The final color is rich, natural black with
aubergine highlights, sometimes glinting blue-black. All the split ends
vanished with the henna. All the tangles go away. Using henna and indigo for
hair coloring can result in black, raven black, blue-black, purplish black
or burgundy black hair. The exact color result depends upon your original
hair coloring as well as how you use your henna and indigo in this process.
Henna and Indigo application can be done in either a two-step or one-step
process.

All commercial black hair dyes have para-phenylenediamine and may people
become sensitive (allergic) to this chemical. It can have devastating
effects on a person's health. Mix indigo with water and stir it up. The
indigo paste should be as thick as stirred up yogurt, though it will be very
lumpy like porridge. It will be a green mush that smells like frozen peas.
In about half an hour the top of this mush will start to turn dark blue.
Wear plastic gloves or your hands will have grey-blue stains. When the
indigo has started to turn blue, put it into a squeeze bottle to squish it
into the hair, or just slather it in by the handful. Work it down to the
scalp, and mush it in like you're trying to plaster a wall with guacamole.
Try to get indigo evenly into all the hair. It's messy. It's stinky.
Remember that women believed the uglier they got with their beauty
preparations, the lovelier they'd be when they were done. Wrap the
indigo-laden hair with plastic wrap into a great mooshy sloppy peas-smelling
turban and let it stay there half an hour. Wipe all the indigo drops off as
they dribble down the neck, forehead and back! These will leave gray streaks
if you don't wipe them away. Rinse this all out of your hair. It takes about
a day for the indigo to oxidize completely, and then your hair will be
amazing black, natural plant color which is a deep blue to purple. A safe
natural color.

Indigo is among the oldest dyes to be used for textile dyeing and printing.
Many Asian countries, such as India, China, and Japan, have used indigo as a
dye for centuries. The dye was also known to ancient civilizations in Egypt,
Greece, Rome, Britain, Peru, and Africa. India is believed to be the oldest
center of indigo dyeing in the Old World. It was a primary supplier of
indigo to Europe as early as the Greco-Roman era.

Medicinal Uses
The roots, stems and leaves are biter, thermogenic, laxative, trichogenous,
expectorant, anthelminitic, tonic and diuretic, and are useful for promoting
the growth of hair and in gastropathy, splenomegaly, cephalagia,
cardiopathy, chronic bronchitis, asthma, ulcers and skin diseases. The juice
expressed from the leaves is useful in the treatment of hydrophobia. An
extract of the plant is good for epilepsy and neuropathy. The plant
possesses anti-toxic property.